Longleaf Pine Database

The Florida Longleaf Pine Ecosystem Geodatabase

The Florida Forest Service (FFS) and Florida Natural Areas Inventory (FNAI) have partnered to develop the Longleaf Pine Ecosystem Geodatabase (LPEGDB), a spatial database that will serve as the central repository for data on the distribution and ecological condition of longleaf pine ecosystems (LPE) in Florida. The database includes data provided by many partner agencies and organizations as well as new field assessment data collected for this project.

Longleaf pine ecosystems are among the most diverse in North America, supporting a large array of herbs and grasses as well as rare animal species such as red-cockaded woodpeckers and gopher tortoises. Although longleaf forests and savannas once dominated the southeastern coastal plain, they have been drastically reduced from an estimated 90 million acres to less than 3 million, largely due to urbanization, over-utilization, conversion to other land uses, and exclusion of natural fire regimes.

Much of the remaining acreage exists as fragmented stands in varying degrees of isolation. Recently, however,
many organizations and agencies have taken steps to prevent further loss, improve what's left, and restore the longleaf pine ecosystem where practicable. The LPEGDB contributes to this effort by providing detailed, baseline data on the location and current ecological condition of remaining longleaf sites in Florida.

LPEGDB, v.1, published June 2014. This version corresponds to the LPEGDB Final Report and represents all tasks involved in the initial development of the database, including compilation of potential LPEs, extensive mining of existing assessment data, and the Rapid Assessment of more than 800,000 acres of LPEs by FFS.

LPEGDB v.2, published October 2014. Version 2 fills several known remaining data gaps on managed conservation lands, especially gaps in ecological condition of LPEs. Updates are included for lands managed by Florida Forest Service, Eglin AFB, U. S. Forest Service, St. Johns River WMD, as well as several non-NRCS-funded longleaf plantings on private lands.

LPEGDB, v.3, published September 2015. Version 3 includes updates based on FNAI field projects and several partner data sources. Attributes and summaries for conservation lands and land cover were added and the database format was revised. The Rapid Assessment Data Collection Model was also updated and field data collection tools are available upon request.

LPEGDB v.2 Supplement Report, published October 2014 PDF (930.97 KB)
This report is supplementary to the Final Report. It describes a number of data updates and summarizes feedback and recommendations received from longleaf partners at a meeting held to review the LPEGDB.

LPEGDB v.3 Summary Report, published September 2015 PDF (15.74 KB)
This report is supplementary to the Final Report. It describes the latest updates to longleaf data, database format, and the Rapid Assessment Data Collection Model. Acreage summaries by manager type, land cover type, and county are included.